Why does violence exist in us? Because we can’t see ourselves as part of a universe; because we see ourselves as being separate. In that separation is violence. If I am separate from everybody else, then of course, I have to fight for my own survival.

Charles Darwin says: Life is a struggle — a struggle to survive, and only the fittest survive. So you have to fight tooth and nail, you have to fight with your total energy, only then can you survive; otherwise, you will be eaten, destroyed. And if you look outside, it seems so.

Politics proves Charles Darwin right. Everybody is fighting with everybody else; and how can you be nonviolent if you are continuously fighting? We are so cunning that we can change, transform our nonviolence also into a weapon. We can make a weapon out of it, we can start fighting nonviolently.

Threat Of ViolenceA young man, a Gandhian, a follower of M K Gandhi, was in love with a woman. The father was very much against him, the woman herself was very much against the man — she hated even to see his face. But he was determined, he was a man of willpower, and he was very nonviolent. So he did a nonviolent trick.

He went to the woman’s house, sat at the door and declared that he would fast unto death, unless she married him. A very nonviolent method: fasting unto death. You are not harming anybody. That’s what Gandhi was doing his whole life: fasting unto death. But is it nonviolence? It is violence, pure violence. Of course you are not destroying the other, you are destroying yourself; but the threat that “I will destroy myself”, is a threat of violence. And you leave the other absolutely defenceless.

The woman was very perturbed, disturbed, not knowing what to do? If the man died, she would feel guilty her whole life that she hadbeen the cause of the death of a young man. The father was also very disturbed. And newspapers were writing and praising the young man: how nonviolent he was, how Gandhian he was. The father was going crazy — what to do, what not to do? Somebody suggested, “Ask some older Gandhian for some antidote, there must be some method.”

Politics, Not ReligionHe went to an old Gandhian who told him, “No, don’t be worried. You do one thing, a very simple thing.” He whispered a secret in his ear and the father was very happy — and the trick worked. The old Gandhian said, “You go to an old woman I know, you tell her to come to your house, sit by the side of the young man, and let her declare that ‘I am fasting unto death unless this young man marries me’.” And that very night, the young man disappeared never to be seen again.

Nonviolence in the hands of politicians is bound to become violent. It is only a beautiful name for an ugly phenomenon. This is not Buddha’s approach, although Gandhians go on declaring that Gandhi was the greatest votary of nonviolence after Gautama Buddha. He was not; he had no understanding of Buddha and his insight. He was purely and simply a politician. His politics was also very subtle — cunning and devious. He was not religious at all. His whole approach was political.

Ahimsa Can’t Be PractisedIf you practise nonviolence, the nonviolence will be false. It cannot be practised. Anything — nonviolence, wisdom, silence, love, compassion, joy, none of these beautiful qualities can be practised. If you practise them, you falsify them. They come on their own; all you need to do is to be more and more aware.

On the tree of awareness many flowers bloom: the flower of love, the flower of truth, the flower of compassion, the flower of nonviolence. Why? — because the more you become aware, the less you can believe in the separation. The more you become aware, the less ego you have. When you become totally aware, you disappear — you become part and parcel of the whole. Then how can you be violent? To whom? There is nobody else, with whom are you going to fight?

Violence or nonviolence is not the question at all. There is nobody else to fight with. It is all oneness, this whole universe is one God and we are part of it. Seeing it, knowing it, realising it, compassion and love start flowing.

Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha. Courtesy: Osho International Foundation. www.osho.com

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